HANSON – The Select Board on Tuesday, Feb. 25 hired a new veterans’ agent, making a tough decision between two qualified applicants.
In the end, they said it was one applicant’s on-the-job experience that tilted the scale in his favor – a “plug-and-play” choice, as it was described more than once.
The Board voted 4-0 to hire Thaddeus Nowacki currently a veterans’ service officer in Randolph since August 2024. Vice Chair Ann Rein was absent.
He has also worked in the private sector and has service with the Maine Air National Guard, the U.S. Air Force, the Mass. Army National Guard and has volunteered for the Randolph Veterans’ Service Office.
Kingston native Lindsey Fairweather is an Air Force veteran who graduated Silver Lake High before serving four years on overseas active duty supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom, and has worked with Volunteers of America on veteran case management and veteran and family support through the VA and the state Department of Veterans Services as a program manager as well as the Veterans’ Benefits Administration as a disability rater. She has also served as operations administrator for the Rhode Island Veterans’ Home. She is also a lifetime member of the VFW and the American Legion.
She is seeking the position to give back to the community more directly, she said.
“We’ve had a little bit of turnover in this position,” Chair Laura FirzGerald Kemmett said. “We really need to have stability because it’s tough for these guys and gals to get comfortable with somebody … that their going to open up about their personal situation and share and get to the point where they’re going to ask for help.”
She noted after the interviews that she had meant for the time given each applicant to be equal, but said the board had more questions in clarifying how Fairweather’s job history could be applied to the position and the board’s concern for longevity in the position.
Fairweather’s extensive experience immediately concerned FitzGerald-Kemmett over how long she might stay in Hanson.
“I’m looking at your credentials and I’m thinking, ‘Why would this person take a part-time job in Hanson with the really amazing credentials that you’ve got?,’” FitzGerald-Kemmett said, “I’m thinking ‘Is this woman going to leave us after 15 minutes?’”
She asked if Fairweather was committed to doing the job if it continues to be a part-time position.
She said it is the kind of position she has wanted to do for a while – and had stuck it out for four rounds of interviews for a veterans services position that was ultimately never filled.
“I’m trying to fulfill what I believe is my duty,” she said, noting that, while she hoped it would mean more hours down the road, “If it stayed part-time, I would stay.”
Select Board member Joe Weeks noted that Hanson’s veterans had gone through “turnover after turnover,” and cautioned Fairweather that more hours were hard to guarantee in light of the town’s current budget climate.
Select Board member David George, himself a veteran, said he was concerned about Hanson veterans’ ability to count on Nowacki holding predictable office hours, even if vets would have to schedule a time to return if he was busy.
“I think most importantly to the veterans in Hanson is keeping on a timetable – a schedule – that you’re going to stick with,” he said. “Right now, it’s chase the veterans agent down.”
both applicants pledged to commit to that.
FitzGerald-Kemmet asked about the Heroes’ Act, signed by Gov. Healey last year that includes about $1.13 trillion of emergency supplemental appropriations to federal agencies, as well as economic assistance to governments at the state, local, tribal, and territorial levels.
After the interviews with the board, Weeks said he wanted to hear Town Administrator Lisa Green’s recommendation before he offered an opinion on who to hire. George and Member Ed Heal nodded their agreement.
“I guess we were really fortunate to attract two very accomplished veterans who want to work for the town,” she said, noting both have also stated they were OK with the part-time position. “Their focus is to provide services to veterans.”
For that reason, she thought both deserved to come before the board.
George expressed concern that Fairweather had served four years and was still a first lieutenant when she separated.
“Thaddeus spent his time as a crew chief, so he was either an E7 or E8 – this guy had some clout in the military,” he said, also suggesting that Hanson veterans would be “more comfortable opening up to” Nowacky.
“She’s a nice girl, don’t get me wrong, she’s a nice person, but I think he’s the better choice,” he said, noting Nowacki’s service as an enlisted man having served in Afghanistan and on the U.S. Border. “Do we have a lot of doctors and lawyers in Hanson? No, we have lot of working people in Hanson, and that’s what you’re going to get for veterans in Hanson.”
George also noted there would be no time lost in training Nowacki.
“My concern is a lack of focus,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “I feel like she’s done a lot of things and she could be good … but I don’t think we’re in a place where we could take a gamble that she’s going to work out, out of the gate, because we don’t have anybody to train her. I love her passion, though, she clearly has a heart for that job.”
Heal’s worry was that Fairweather is way over-qualified, while not knowing the basics of what this job entails.
“I don’t know enough about the job to know whether she would fumble or he would succeed – or vice versa,” said member Joe Weeks. “I will back the decision, because they report to you [Green]and they have to have a good fit with you. [But] if it was up to me, I know who I would hire, 100-percent, but it’s up to you and who you think is best for the town, but I will say I think we spent a lot more time talking to one candidate than the other, because they clearly had a lot of experience that would lend this town a new way of servicing and doing some outreach.”
Weeks said he likes it when people come with a plan and a vision and are able to articulate that, and he said one candidate did a better job of that than the other.
Green had recommended Nowacki.